2017 Fantasy Analysis

I thought it would go through the results and our draft to see who the best draft picks were. This will involve performance and draft value, since it's not that helpful to point out Bell was the #2 RB but the #1 pick taken. 

Best RB Picks

Gurley - #1RB - 17th

Kamara - #3RB - undrafted

Hunt - #4RB - 43rd

Ingram - #6RB - 72nd

Elliot - #7RB - 36th 

Best WR Picks

Hopkins - #2WR - 24th

Allen - #4WR - 28th

Thielen - #5WR - 90th

Jones Jr. - #8WR - 113th

Best QB Picks

Wentz - #2QB - undrafted

You couldn't really go wrong at QB this year. Brady was the first QB taken and had a good year. Wilson and Cousins could be had later. Wentz, Watson, Goff, even Alex Smith had good years and could be found on the waiver wire. A lot easier to find a top-ten QB replacement than a top-ten WR replacement. 

I'm on track to have the most points scored this year, but I could have done better. 

Bell great first pick.

Fournette great second pick. 

Needed a receiver here, should have taken Hopkins instead of Hilton. Knowing Luck was injured, that's just a bad pick. 

Hill not a bad pick, Adams, Fitzgerald or Landry would have all been better. 

Thought I was getting a steal on Mixon and could get Hunt later. Should have grabbed Hunt.

Gore and Marshall were busts at 6/7. Could have had Ingram. 

Hogan, Eifert and Cousins, all solid. Eifert got hurt but that doesn't make it a bad pick. 

Late round picks are fliers. I mean with perfect hindsight I could have gotten Wentz and Jones Jr. but they're lottery tickets at that point. 

The Hopkins and Hunt decisions were 2 that I should have made. 

Chiefs-Bills: I Was There

I won a ticket to the Chiefs-Bills game on Sunday. Disappointing home loss, but it was still nice to go to the stadium. It was my first time in the club level. Felt like a real big shot with the carving stations and $13 bloody mary bar. 

Here's a picture I took just to the left of the glass-walled suites on the club level.

Then I walked over to my seats, Section 239, Row 1.

It was cool to be the front row and all but I wasn't thrilled with sitting in the corner again. Since it was early, I walked through the seats to get to the 50 to take this shot: 

I had a hunch that a decent number of corporate seats go unfilled, so I picked the last row in this section (Section 202, Row 9) and waited for kickoff. I got lucky as there were 5 empty seats and I got a primo view of the game.

NFL Teams with Best Wins and Worst Losses

Through Week 12, there are four teams that have only two losses or less. Eagles, Steelers, Vikings, Patriots. So based on record, beating these teams would be the most impressive wins. Here are the teams with the best wins:

Chiefs (x2)
Bears
Jaguars
Steelers
Lions
Panthers

There are five teams that have less than three wins. 49ers, Giants, Colts, Bears, Broncos. (There's actually six but since the Browns haven't beaten anybody they're irrelevant to this.) Based on record, here are the teams with the worst losses:

Giants
Broncos
Chiefs
Browns
49ers
Texans
Steelers
Ravens
Panthers
Chargers
Cowboys
Raiders

There are three teams on both lists, that have one of the most impressive wins and worst losses: Chiefs, Steelers, Panthers.

From 33 to 34

Leading up to my 33rd birthday a year ago, I had an idea. It was to make 33 the best year of my life. I thought there was something special in the number and I was about to embark upon a new journey--a new job, a new city. So I made a document. There were 4 sections. Career, Personal, Fitness, Family. Each of the four sections had specific action items underneath. I thought if I accomplished these things, it would make it the best year of my life.

Overall I was about a 50% success rate.

I did lean into my career, going pretty well.
I did some personal writing, feel good about that.
I did go to some Chiefs games.

I didn't take my family camping.
I didn't reach any of the fitness goals.
I didn't do curling or indoor skydiving.

But sitting here as I turn 34, I don't think I should judge my year on the goals I had. Because a lot happened that I wasn't expecting.

- - -

Not only did I really try to make the most of my career, I produced more TV than I ever had before. Actually made a funny commercial and it was for the Chiefs. Got to travel to NY and LA for work. Despite the occasional to frequent stress, it's been a great year at work.

With some help from Niraj, I came up with an idea for a book to write and have completed 98% of the first draft. It makes me laugh. I feel really good about it.

I've really had a great year with the kids. We've been reading lots of books, they started soccer and swimming and tumbling. I'm so proud of them.

I got to live in Kansas City for the first time since I was 9. I did more escape rooms, I took my family hiking, took vacations, ate a lot of barbecue.

I moved into a great house and have an amazing game room that I just love to be in.

I found Unity Temple which brings me peace and perspective every Sunday.

And most importantly of all, I was able to repair the primary relationship in my life. Every day Brittany brings me joy and love in a way that can't be replicated. I'm excited to be with her, I'm excited every day for our life together. My family is whole again and that's really all that matters in life.

- - -

So was it the best year of my life? Well, what's the competition?

When I was 18, I started dating Brittany and made life-long friends in my first year in college.

When I was 21, I graduated early from college, proposed to Brittany, got to experience an Illinois Final Four run, and moved to Chicago for an internship.

When I was 27, I became a dad, got a new job and moved to Colorado.

Those were all pretty great and influential years. There's really no need to split hairs and try to claim one was better than another. But I will say it's true that you don't know what you have until it's gone. When I was 27, I was on top of the world. Hadn't felt what it was like to go through something truly difficult and come out the other side. Now I try my best to appreciate everything that I have and take nothing for granted.

State of Sports

CHIEFS. They started the season 5-0 and there was actually Alex Smith MVP talk. But now they're 6-3 along with the Titans and Jags. The optimist would look at how their schedule eases up after the bye and could see a path to 13-3 or 12-4 and getting a playoff bye. A pessimist could see them dropping more games and ending up 9-7. Still, fun season, fun games.

ILLINI BASKETBALL. The Underwood era kicked off by the Illini scoring 100. Mr. Basketball Mark Smith is actually really good at basketball. He's a freshman. The starting five of Smith, Lucas, Finke, Alstork and Black is really strong. Goals: make the tournament this year. Sweet 16 in 2018-2019. Final Four in 2019-2020.

AVALANCHE. Had a surprising 4-1 start to the season but cooled off. The big news is they finally traded Matt Duchene. Sucks because he's an awesome guy and was my favorite player. They allegedly got a good return but I never think you're going to be better by trading away the best player. What it really means is that they're even more years away from being competitive. Although Duchene didn't prevent them from being the worst in the league last year so I understand trying to rebuild. I don't think the coach is the answer it will probably be 5+ years before this team wins a playoff series. Will Landeskog or MacKinnon ever win a series in Colorado?

ILLINI FOOTBALL. They're bad. Lovie was a great hire, but he's not a miracle worker. They'll get better but it's still a sport dominated by the blue-blood programs. In 10 years, Rutgers, Indiana, Purdue and Illinois will still be bad. ALionEye thinks in the fall of 2019 that Michigan-Illinois will be a big national game, we'll see.

USMNT. And just when you think that there couldn't be a team doing worse than Illinois football...in the 2015 Gold Cup they lose to Jamaica, didn't even make the finals. Since They won the previous Gold Cup there was a special playoff vs Mexico to see who would represent CONCACAF in the 2017 Confederations Cup. USMNT would lose that as well. In 2016, they had a decent showing at the Copa America, finishing 4th. But then the wheels came off and they didn't qualify for the 2018 World Cup. (For what it's worth Mexico finished 4th at the Confederations Cup.)

And my Calcutta roster is strong and fantasy is doing well. I won the fantasy title this year, so it's all gravy from here on out.

Illinois Basketball: Underwood Era Begins

I'm going to start with a little research/analysis.

Illinois actually had some good starts during the Groce era. The best was in 2012-13, when the Illini went 12-0 including winning the Maui invitational and a road win against #10 Gonzaga.

In 2014-15 they started 6-0 and were #1 in scoring through the first couple weeks.

So the question I want answered is: does a good start or non-conference translate to end of the year success?

- - -

(For the rest of this I'm going to use the fall number year for ease of use.)

Groce was coach for 5 years. 2012-2016.

2012 - NCAA 2nd round
2013 - NIT
2014 - NIT
2015 - nothing
2016 - NIT

First of all yikes. But let's see if the starts can tell us anything.

Here's the non-conference schedule:

2012: 13-1
2013: 11-2
2014: 10-3
2015: 8-5
2016: 10-3

So based only on that, yeah it seems like if you have 5 losses, don't make any postseason plans. And if you want to go to the tournament, try not to lose more than one non-conference game.

Let's go deeper to the conference records.

2012: 8-10
2013: 7-11
2014: 9-9
2015: 5-13
2016: 8-10

Surprisingly, this data tells you less than the non-conference data. Looking at that there's no way to think that 2012 was the only NCAA appearance.

So...let's go Underwood! These games actually matter!

Chiefs-Cowboys: insta-reaction

So here's what this means. The Chiefs are going to be the 3rd seed.

I know, there's another 9 games to be played. Way too early. But I believe this.

The Chiefs will win their division. They will have a better record than the AFC South winner. And looking at the Patriots + Steelers schedules, I think it's going to be hard for the Chiefs to pass them after losing 3 of their last 4.

(I mean it's still possible for the Chiefs to grab the top seed or miss the playoffs entirely, but let's go with this.)

So if it's Pats-Steelers 1-2 in some order, that means the Chiefs don't get a bye. They get a home playoff game but on wild-card weekend against the 6 seed. That could be an annoying game but let's assume they win.

They have to go on the road to Heinz Field or Gillette. That's a loss. Even if they pull off a miracle, they have to go to the top seed on the road the week after.

So yeah, this Chiefs team isn't winning the Super Bowl. The path to winning was getting a bye and getting only one of the Patriots/Steelers AND facing them at home. That's out the window. So...sucks.

Doing the Math

Having just introduced my Point Differential in Losses metric, I thought it would be worthwhile to test it out.

I'm going to compare it to wins and standard point differential over the last three games of the year for the last three years, to see which metric is a better predictor in the playoffs. For each game, I'll state if the particular metric correctly predicted the winner.


2016
Pittsburgh vs New England
Wins: yes
PD: yes
PDwL: yes

Green Bay vs Atlanta
Wins: yes
PD: yes
PDwL: yes

Atlanta vs New England
Wins: yes
PD: yes
PDwL: no

(Editor's Note: so my metric looks a lot cooler if Atlanta doesn't blow a 28-3 lead, just saying. Pretty interesting that the Falcons in 5 losses had less PDwL than the Patriots did in two.)


2015
New England vs Denver
Wins: N/A tied
PD: no
PDwL: N/A tied

Carolina vs Arizona
Wins: yes
PD: yes
PDwL: yes

Carolina vs Denver
Wins: no
PD: no
PDwL: no

2014
New England vs Indianapolis
Wins: yes
PD: yes
PDwL: yes

Green Bay vs Seattle
Wins: N/A tied
PD: yes
PDwL: yes

New England vs Seattle
Wins: N/A tied
PD: yes
PDwL: no


(Editor's Note: Goddamnit. The Patriots win 2 Super Bowls in three years that they shouldn't have and it ruins my metric. Fuck.)

Advanced NFL Metrics

I came up with a new stat: Point Differential in Losses. It rewards wins and close losses, punishes big losses. You don't get credit for blowing out bad teams, but it does punish the bad teams. Take the recent game where the Ravens beat the Dolphins by 40. The Ravens aren't that good (before that game they had a -18 point differential). So instead of acting like they're really a +22 team now, let's just punish the Dolphins for being shitty.

There is one caveat, if you've only played 7 games, you're at an advantage to a team that's played 8 games. So I'll put an asterisk by the 7 game teams. If you see an asterisk, you probably want to mentally move them down a slot or two.

Here's the current standings (after week 8).

Eagles 7

Chiefs 7

Bills 10*
Rams 13*
Seahawks 14*
Patriots 18
Lions 23*
Vikings 24

Falcons 25*
Saints 26*
Steelers 27
Chargers 29
Packers 33*
Jaguars 34*
Cowboys 34*
Texans 36*

Panthers 40
Bengals 43*
Bucs 44*
Washington 46*
Jets 49
Broncos 54*
Raiders 57
Giants 57*

Titans 59*
Bears 60
Ravens 65
Dolphins 74*
Cardinals 81*
Browns 83
49ers 86
Colts 110

Booking the NFL Championship Games

Sunday, January 21, 2018

Seahawks at Eagles

Patriots at Chiefs